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“This is an exciting and remarkable result ”

Professor Andrew Coates

Experts found hydrothermal vents on Enceladus, similar to those found on the bottom of Earth's oceans where methane-making bugs flourish.

The discovery was made using NASA's Cassini spacecraft which is nearing the end of a 13-year mission exploring Saturn and its 62 orbiting moons.

Writing in the journal Science, the US team led by Dr Hunter Waite, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, concluded: "Our analysis supports the feasibility of methanogenesis as an energy-releasing process that can occur over a wide range of geochemical conditions plausible for Enceladus' ocean."

However, the scientists pointed out that just because Enceladus has conditions suitable for methanogenesis, that does not prove anything is living there.

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ORBIT: The findings were discovered on one of Saturn's 82 moons

Leading British expert Professor Andrew Coates, from University College London, said: "This is an exciting and remarkable result which shows that Enceladus may actually be habitable.

"We know that the four requirements for life as we know it are liquid water, the right chemistry, a source of energy and enough time for life to develop.

"But now, we know that three of the four conditions are there on Enceladus - and this distant moon now joins Mars and Europa as the best potential locations for life beyond Earth in our solar system."

David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences at the Open University, added: "Life has not been discovered on Enceladus, but we do now have the last piece of evidence needed to demonstrate that life is possible there."

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In 2005, Cassini discovered Enceladus's geysers, which shoot hundreds of miles into space.

Some of the material falls back onto the surface as a fresh coat of ice, while much of the rest gathers into a halo of ice dust that feeds one of Saturn's rings.